[Courtney] Hello, everyone, and welcome back.

My name is Courtney.

I am here with my spouse, Royce, and together we are The Ace Couple.

And I am so, so, so thrilled about today’s episode.

Because, at long last, I am able to sit here and talk about a piece of asexual representation that was done exceedingly well in my favorite medium, which is live theater.

Not only that, a Broadway play.

Which, not only did I find exceptional, but audiences everywhere did, critics, even the Tony Awards.

For it won the award for Best Play on Broadway 2025.

This is so groundbreaking.

And I am elated.

And I really, really wish more people were talking about this with a focus on the asexuality component of this show because it was beautifully done, it was important to the play.

And so, full transparency, this is gonna be full spoilers.

So if any of you out there really, really want to go into this without any knowledge of what the show is like, maybe don’t listen for too terribly long.

[Courtney] However, theater is a fleeting medium.

The show was originally supposed to close, I think, the beginning of July, but it got an extension.

As of the time of recording, it’s scheduled to go at least until the end of August.

So unless you are right there already in New York, or able to travel there very quickly, it’s likely going to be difficult to get it in, unless it gets another extension.

And of course, who knows when it might get a revival.

I wouldn’t think a tour is likely with a show like this.

I can absolutely see it being something that down the line in the future is done by some regional theaters or local groups.

But we just really need to give the show its flowers, so I’m excited to talk about it.

So without further ado, let’s talk about Purpose.

[Courtney] This year, this Broadway season, was honestly so important to me as an asexual theater lover.

And I was somehow lucky enough to be able to see not only the Tony Award-winning Best Play, but also the Tony Award-winning Best Musical, which is Maybe Happy Ending.

Which I think we’re also gonna talk about that, in a future episode.

Because although it’s not the same real world, tangible, explicit asexual representation that Purpose is that we’re discussing today, I’m gonna go ahead and claim it.

I am.

So let it be known, best play and best musical at the Tonys 2025 were both extremely asexual.

This is the year of Ace Broadway.

Let us revel in it.

Ace rep aside, I will say this play was probably the best non-musical play I’ve seen in at least a decade, maybe more.

It was an exquisite play, and I think it would have been just with the amazing acting, staging, script, family dynamics – it is, at its heart, a family drama with a fair bit of comedy for relief in between the high tension moments.

[Courtney] But the fact that not only is there an asexual character, he is the main character of this play.

He is the main point of view character.

He is the narrator.

He opens and closes the show with a monologue.

He’s frequently doing an aside to the audience to talk about his own inner thoughts or feelings or concerns or anxieties amongst the dialogue that happens throughout.

So right from the get-go, I was just in awe of seeing a main point of view character be the ace one, because how often do we see that in any visual media?

There are books out there, there are certainly books, comics, written media, not always necessarily mainstream, usually more often than not it’s not mainstream.

It’s more independent authors creating characters and stories like this.

But in terms of visual media, so we’re talking TV shows, movies, plays, musicals – which until recently was pretty well unheard of – I can only think off the top of my head of Rabbit, which is a web series we talked about on YouTube.

Can you think of any other ones?

[Royce] Yeah, Rabbit was very small.

That was like someone’s pet project, it seemed like.

Like– [Courtney] And it was good.

[Royce] It was good.

[Courtney] I liked it.

[Royce] I didn’t even wanna say like– I don’t know if it was small enough to be considered a portfolio piece, like, “Here’s something I’m shooting to try to launch a career.” But it was very small scale.

[Courtney] I want it to be a real show.

I want someone to pick it up.

But yeah, as it stands now, you can watch them on YouTube.

You can listen to our review of it.

And it was done very well.

But that’s the only thing I can think of.

That’s not anywhere near mainstream media.

[Royce] I don’t have a big list of ace rep in front of me, but I feel like a lot of ace representation in current day does go to the fringes.

I’m sure that there are, you know, maybe there are books and things that may have a prominent ace lead, but when it comes to big forms of media, no, I don’t think so.

That’s usually if an ace character exists at all, they’re one side character.

[Courtney] Yeah, and to varying extents too, because we have characters like Todd Chavez, who is still one of the main cast.

He’s still very important.

He’s there throughout the entire show every single season, and he’s got more going on than just his ace arc.

So that is a very well done example of ace media.

But the is called Bojack Horseman.

The main point of view character is Bojack Horseman.

And then we do have, more recently we talked about the movie Selah and the Spades.

Selah, you know, title character, is the ace one.

It’s a bit– They don’t use the word asexual, but you can listen to our review on that to hear more of those thoughts.

But she isn’t like the point of view character.

The time where she has sort of a monologue to people it’s done in a very surreal style, and it’s in front of the other lead character.

So we’re sort of seeing this happen through that other character’s eyes.

So that is an example of a main character being a very complicated example of ace rep.

[Courtney] But I– I can only think of Rabbit.

And then– Then we have the characters that are even worse than just a supporting character.

We have, like, well, the– the first ace character in Sex Education, Florence, and I’m gonna go ahead and put Elijah on Big Mouth in the same camp where they are introduced as a character for the purpose of introducing an asexual character, and then once their point is made, they go away.

Elijah was better than Florence because he had more going on.

We got to see more in-depth examples of what the ace rep was, but as soon as he was no longer in a relationship with the main allosexual character, he was gone.

As far as I have heard, he has not even made an appearance in the final season of that show, which came out not too long ago.

He’s just gone and out of here.

[Courtney] But Elijah is also one of the only examples of a Black ace guy.

And here we have just that in Purpose.

The character’s name is Nazareth, or Naz for short.

He’s probably a 20-something Black man, been living on his own for a while.

His family is a very prominent family from within the Civil Rights Movement.

So his family is– his father in particular is a Reverend, you know, new Martin Luther King, has had dinner with Nelson Mandela, helped organize marches.

It seems to me like this family, the Jaspers, is very heavily inspired by Jesse Jackson.

Because of the fact that he was part of this group of civil rights leaders, he also was a minister, he also has a few unpopular political opinions, and he’s got a son named after him, Jesse Jackson Jr.

who was convicted of campaign fraud.

And any of you who know that story will recognize some of those aspects in the Jasper family in this play.

[Courtney] So the play opens with Nazareth giving a monologue primarily about how much he loves lakes and how he’s a nature photographer.

And he starts giving very specific facts about lakes and even acknowledges to the audience that probably no one wants to hear these things.

Like once he starts really going in about lakes, he’s like, “I know, I know, but stay with me.” And before I even knew what this show was about or where it was going in this opening monologue, I was like, “Oh, he’s autistic.” And turns out, yes, probably.

But amongst his introducing his love of photography, his love of nature, he’s talking about how he’s out doing a shoot and he has agreed to become a sperm donor for a very good friend of his.

This is a very modern play.

Although the patriarch of this family has deep ties with the civil rights movement, this is happening post 2020.

They reference the pandemic, they reference the lockdowns.

[Royce] And they reference being far enough out of the lockdowns that it seemed like people may have already forgotten what it was like at that point in time.

Like a couple years had passed and it was like fading memory sort of thing.

[Courtney] I think at one point they say it was three years ago.

[Royce] Okay.

[Courtney] So we’re probably looking at like 2023 is when this play is roughly set.

And Naz is talking about how his friend Aziza wants to have a baby and asked him if he would be her sperm donor.

And even the way he talks about coming to this decision is very enjoyable for me.

Because he was like, “Yeah, I agreed to give her my genetic material, because what am I gonna do with it?

[chuckles] And if I can help a friend, if I can help her fulfill her dream of becoming a mother, that’s a great use of my genetic material, because I’m not using it for anything.” And there is such a delightful humor about the show.

Because he’s even like, “To be clear, a turkey baster was the method.

But only the best for Aziza, so we got Williams Sonoma.” [laughs] But she was ovulating right before he was due to go back home to Chicago to have dinner with his family.

And so they meet up really quickly and she agrees to drive him there.

Very long drive, they’re coming from like the Niagara Falls area was where they met up for this.

And as soon as he gets home with his family, the little things that so many of us in the Ace Community have heard over and over, so many things that we will just feel so viscerally start happening immediately.

It’s incredibly realistic.

[Royce] Yeah, for the bulk of the play just happening in a house with a family, the runtime there did feel pretty natural for the sort of conversations that would happen and the trajectory of things.

[Courtney] Yeah.

And it is a single set, so it all happens in his parents’ house, which you can see is a very nice house.

Mini mansion, if not mansion-mansion, with like a full on portrait of Martin Luther King hanging on the wall.

And so this is clearly a very well off family.

He gets in and we meet his brother, first of all, who– the reason for this big dinner is primarily because he just got out of prison because of the campaign fraud that he was convicted of.

It was their mother’s birthday a little while ago, so it’s not literally her birthday now, but they’re calling it her birthday dinner.

She’s going around being like, “I’m the birthday girl,” but it’s also kind of a “Our son just got out of prison.” Now, the other parallel to Jesse Jackson Jr.

with this brother is that he is also named after his father.

They are both Solomon Jasper.

So we have Solomon Sr.

and we have Solomon Jr.

[Courtney] Solomon Jr, when convicted, is a husband and a father.

His wife also got convicted, but because of their two young sons, they were given concurrent sentences.

So Solomon Jr.

served his sentence first, and then his wife was going in after him so that one of them was out to look after the children.

So this is the very narrow in-between time right before she’s about to go to prison.

So her name is Morgan.

She is also a character.

We don’t see her for a while because she is holed up in her room.

But the minute the mother Claudine comes in, like, one of the first things she says to Nazareth is like, “Oh, my weird son is home.” So immediately calling him the weird son, giving him a big hug, being very motherly, but starting to immediately make digs about, like, “When are you going to bring a woman home?” To which he does deflect a bit at first.

He has not yet said the word asexual.

If you did not go in knowing that this is an asexual character, I’m sure a lot of people didn’t realize it until he said asexual.

But all of these little family ribbings, regardless of if the word is said, oh my gosh, aces everywhere are going to see it and recognize it and understand this for what it is.

[Courtney] Because things get so much worse with those comments when– turns out Naz left his phone charger in Aziza’s car.

So she comes back and knocks on the door to give it to him, planning to just drop it off.

However, mom sees a woman come to the door and is like, “Oh, Naz!

This is your lady-friend, why are you trying to hide her from us?” And of course he’s saying, “No, it’s not like that.

This isn’t my girlfriend.” And nobody believes him.

Nobody does.

Even the brothers getting in on it, like, “Oh yeah, finally, he brought a woman home.

We were beginning to worry.” It’s that we were beginning to worry about him.

So the whole family is clearly talking.

The whole family clearly thinks that either him bringing a woman home is inevitable, or in the case of the dad, he seems far more to believe like my son is gay and he’s just lying to all of us.

That’s very much the vibe.

[Courtney] But the mom saying, “I’m the birthday girl, what I say goes,” sees as he’s at the door and is like, “Stay for dinner.

Stay overnight.

We want to get to know you.” And as much as Nazareth is trying to say, like, “No, no, no, she’s just dropping it off.

She’s on her way.

It’s not like that.” She starts the same way, like, “No, no, no, I’m just dropping it off.

That’s fine.” But then she learns who his dad is.

She learns that his dad is the Reverend Solomon Jasper.

And she freaks.

She completely gets starstruck.

Fangirls.

She’s squealing.

She’s like, “You didn’t tell me that this was your father?!

You didn’t tell me.” And, and she just talks about how she went to a predominantly African-American school that was championing Black Excellence and how his face was literally on the wall of the classroom alongside Martin Luther King Jr.

Alongside the Peanut Guy.

And that’s what she says, “What’s– What was his name?

The Peanut Guy.” And she lists off all of these other, you know, prominent figures in Black American history.

And she’s like, “Well, now I’m staying.

Now I’ve got to stay.

Oh, my gosh, my mother will not even believe whose house I am in right now.” [Courtney] And then she, like, looks down at her stomach and starts going, “Oh my god!” And she goes, “You didn’t tell me that I might be pregnant with Black history!” So she is having a moment and Naz is thoroughly embarrassed.

He did not want anyone to know who his family is.

He did not want her to stay.

He does not want his entire family thinking that they are in a relationship, which at this point they very much do.

But the little digs.

The way families can dig about sex, even in a family that doesn’t talk explicitly about sex, is something that I don’t know if many, like, cis-het-allosexual people truly appreciate.

’Cause so often, especially in religious families, conservative families, you think about, like, oh, sex is a taboo.

Families don’t talk about sex.

Your parents aren’t gonna be talking about sex to you.

They find ways, even without saying sex, they’re still talking about sex.

And that’s something that if your experience doesn’t actually match what their implications are, it’s felt very acutely.

[Courtney] And one example of that, here in this show, was once the mother insists that Aziza stays the night, she does this little wink-wink, nudge-nudge where she’s like, “I hope you don’t mind that I’m going to set you up into separate bedrooms because you remember we’re a Christian family around here.” But the way she says it is very suggestive.

It’s almost like, I suspect you’re having sex outside of my house already, but when you’re in my house, you’re not going to have sex for optics, I guess.

But she doesn’t seem upset about the implication itself that they might be having sex.

So there are comments like that, that, like, I grew up hearing my grandmother say comments like that to me all the time, like as soon as I hit teenage years.

So it’s like I recognize them so much.

[Courtney] And then as they’re getting ready to sit down to dinner in one of his asides, Nazareth mentions, “Oh, dinner with my family is like the Olympics of doing the most.” He’s like, “Buckle up, this is going to be bad.” And we finally do get everyone assembled.

Morgan comes down from her room.

She’s wearing, like, sunglasses.

She does not look happy to be here.

She’s not even talking for quite a bit of time.

The Reverend, he is grumpy.

He is so grumpy.

And I love the use of Naz’s monologues throughout.

Because when it cuts away from a scene for him to just talk to the audience, it fills in so much about what the pre-existing dynamics of this family are.

Like, one of the reasons he explains in a monologue why he isn’t forthcoming about who his family is, and especially his father, is - you know - because he has some questionable views on Middle Eastern politics, and I don’t really want to get into that.

And he’s got some questionable– questionable views on, you know, Black capitalism that I don’t want to talk about.

[Courtney] So you’re getting these little nuggets about how, even though Aziza right here in this moment is looking at this man as an important, prominent historical figure, and he is for so many reasons, she is not seeing the full picture of how this is also a flawed man who isn’t right 100% of the time.

She is just seeing the picture of Black Excellence that she was always taught to aspire to when she was growing up.

I believe the way Naz actually phrases it is: “She just sees Famous Black.” And although there are so many nuances to a family that is Black, a family that is in the public eye, a family that has many controversies surrounding them that they are trying to bury, that’s also just a feeling that I think a lot of people can relate to on some level about their family or someone who is very, very close to them who has a certain image or presents themselves in a certain way to people outside of the family.

[Courtney] And just the complex feelings that can come with like, “Oh, the person you’re seeing is not the person I know very well.” But they sit down to dinner and it’s a hot mess.

It is a mess and a half, in fact.

We see before and during dinner how Junior just really, really wants his father’s approval.

And he really, really wants to spend quality time with his father, but his father is just not having it.

And that starts with a couple of comments here and there, like, oh, his father saying something roughly about, oh, I don’t have anyone to go hunting with or something.

And he’s like, “I’ll go hunting with you, Dad!

Just teach me and I’ll go with you.” And he’s like, “No, that that won’t be necessary.” Or we learn that Solomon senior has started keeping bees.

[Royce] And that was something that I thought was portrayed in an interesting way because he hasn’t just been keeping bees.

He’s been going full special-interest on bees.

[Courtney chuckles] And we start to see these sort of overlap of family traits that we often see in families that exhibit some form of neurodivergence.

[Courtney] Yes.

And one of the only times they say the actual word neurodivergent is in one of Nazareth’s monologues where he’s filling in information about Claudine and Junior and their kids.

He says something like, “Oh yeah, they have two kids.

They’re serving their concurrent sentences,” sort of filling in that backlog of information.

And he says, “One of their kids is what we would now call neurodivergent.” So that was sort of the precursor to the conversation that really blew up over dinner.

But the Reverend goes and says, like, oh, sitting down for dinner, let’s say grace.

And Junior starts trying to lead the prayer before dinner.

To which Senior is like, “Pardon me, what are you doing?” And he’s like, “I’m sorry, father.

I was on autopilot.

You know, I lead the prayers back home, but you are the patriarch of this family.” And he’s very, very melodramatic.

At which point Naz turns to the audience and he’s like, “See?

Here we go.

It starts.

It begins.” [Courtney] Another thing Naz gives us before dinner in a monologue is that Junior is what he calls the king of the pivot.

He said he was a politician, but he’s now been disgraced by this conviction, but he always has a way to pivot.

He always does it.

He is the king of it.

And we finally see over dinner what his latest pivot attempt is going to be.

So he presents his mother a birthday present.

Apparently, she wrote him a letter in prison every single day of his sentence.

And so he had all of those letters published in a book, and he gives that to her and gives this big speech about how, “Oh, these letters are what really kept me going and that gave me hope.

And as my mother, you not only gave me life once, but you gave me life twice when you wrote me these letters every single day.” And so, he really was, in fact, doing the most, as we were warned he would do.

But he announces that, with his mother’s blessing, he wants to actually publish these books to sell to people and to donate to prison libraries and to do tours the two of them, you know, Solomon Jr.

and his mother Claudine, they can tour the prisons, they can talk to people.

And he was saying, this is going to be a big step toward prison reform because it’s awful what they’re doing to us and our community.

[Courtney] And he starts talking about how he met someone who was put in prison before he could legally vote.

And now he’s going to come out of prison several decades later as a felon who will never get to vote now and how– how unjust that is.

And Naz is like, “Okay, here’s the pivot.

I told you, king of the pivot.” Meanwhile, his father is not having any of it.

His father is like, “You embezzled money from your campaign fund.

Some of that money came from Black families.” He’s like, “Why are you pretending like you have had this grave injustice done to you?” And he’s like, “Don’t sit and talk to me about how unjust the prison system is.” He’s like, “I was put in jail for marching back in the days.

I know this thing.” And his son’s like, “Well, oh, it’s not exactly the same.

Prison and jail are both a little different.” And he’s like, “I had dinner with Nelson Mandela.

Are you trying to compare your experience to Nelson Mandela?” And so he’s like, “This is an insult, and no, I’m not gonna give you the blessing to publish this book.” [Courtney] And it was just so fun to watch this family dinner, because it kept escalating from this point.

But seeing everyone’s reactions, like when people would divert eyes, when people would, like, look at their plate.

And seeing Aziza as like the guest looking in on this family who’s just like– I don’t know if you’ve ever had dinner with a family who’s not yours and they’re all bickering, but I certainly have, and that is not a comfortable place to be in.

And every single actor on this stage was fabulous, and the facial expressions they were making to convey these things, even when they did not have lines for it, were beautifully done.

But they really decide to turn it around like, “All right, now that we’re fighting, let’s bring our other son into this.” I think it’s Solomon Sr.

who sort of pokes Naz first.

And it’s sort of under the general premise of this whole family is lying to people.

They’re lying to me, they’re lying to themselves, they’re lying to the world.

And like, Naz, you’re lying too.

Is there something you wanna tell us?

And he’s like, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” [Courtney] And he’s like, “Well, you brought this Aziza here, and apparently you were just in Niagara Falls.

They call that the honeymoon capital of the world, but yet here you’re saying you’re not boyfriend-girlfriend.

When do people stop calling themselves boyfriend and girlfriend.” You know.

And he’s like, “People still do that, but we’re not.” And he’s like, “What do you really want to tell us?

What are you lying to us about?” And so Aziza seeing his dad go in on him like this feels the need to cut in and is like, “No, he’s right.

We aren’t actually in a relationship.” He’s like, “Then what were you doing up in Niagara Falls?

Why were you there together?” And then we learn– This isn’t the big coming out moment that we normally might see in a piece of asexual media representation.

I thought for a moment that that might be where this was leading to, but instead the father says– well, because Naz says, “We’ve already talked about this, Dad.” And he says, “I know we’ve already talked about it, but I don’t care if you’re calling yourself non-sexual or asexual or whatever it is, but that’s not real.

You are lying to us.

What’s the real story here?” [Courtney] And that was maybe a seemingly mundane detail for the average viewer, but for me, I thought that was so brilliant because we’ve seen some examples of the Ace coming out story in media.

But I personally know many aces, myself included, who did at one point or another come out to someone who just did not believe it.

And maybe, maybe, those people come around eventually, but not always.

I don’t remember if we talked about this when we had Yasmin on the podcast or not, but she’s definitely been one to talk about the fact that, like, “Yeah, I came out as asexual long before anyone believed me.

People didn’t really believe me that I was asexual until they started seeing me in, like, articles about it.” So that is actually a very common ace experience, and it’s kind of a delight to skip the initial coming out and go right to, “I already came out, I already had this conversation with you.

You’re the one who’s not believing it and continuing to dig.” [Courtney] And it was interesting because we have the mom who’s so eager to buy that Aziza is clearly just his girlfriend, that for some reason he’s trying to hide from the family, but he finally has a girlfriend.

He’s not gonna be as weird anymore.

But his dad in all of his comments and his digging is very, like, “Just tell us if you’re gay.” That’s the impression I got in these conversations.

And Aziza does chime in at this point.

Nazareth, in a monologue, says, “I tried to divert my eyes from her.

I tried to give her physical, nonverbal cues to just let it go, to not dig in, let it pass.

But it didn’t work and she went in.” And I’m not actually mad about how this explanation went, because she chimes in, she’s like, “No, no, no, as a friend of his, I want to corroborate his story.

He is asexual and asexuality is a real thing to be.” And when she started talking, I was like, okay, I really do like where this is going, but now we’re going to have the obligatory ‘Ace 101: this is what Asexuality is’ speech, which so often we get in media.

[Courtney] But it did not feel – the way it was a combination of the writing and the acting of it – did not feel like this was a PSA for the audience.

It may have partially been because unfortunately a lot of casual viewers of media who don’t know ace people in their lives still don’t always understand this orientation.

But it does get frustrating when you kind of have to break out the PowerPoint to explain to people an important aspect of a character’s life.

And that was a big criticism that we had with, again, Florence, Sex Education, being the briefest, most egregious example of that that I can think of.

But there are others.

This one felt better because in the world – even though some aspect of it may have been for the audience’s benefit – this was Aziza panicking and trying to help.

And not even necessarily doing it extremely well.

She says the things she needs to say, but she’s kind of stuttering, she maybe starts talking a little faster when she’s losing her words.

She forgets some words even, which is a very human thing.

[Courtney] But something about writing it in a play where a human can act it live in front of you works and is done so much more often than I see in, like, a TV show or a movie where a lot of the dialogue is just a lot more – I don’t want to say scripty because they’re all scripts – but like polished and perfectly presented.

So she’s kind of fumbling through it, but she says the thing like, “You know, sexuality is a spectrum and asexuality is a real thing.

And she’s like, and you can– you can trust me because I’m a social worker.

So I know these things.” So she’s trying to use her own credential, like, “Not only am I his friend, but I know some things about sexuality.” And she tries so hard, but she even like– she probably does believe and respect Nazareth’s sexuality as his friend.

But she’s still very clearly not like the most educated person on asexuality, but she’s trying to go the education route, in this moment for the benefit of his dad.

And she trips up some words.

She’s like, “Yeah, asexuality is a recognized orientation by the [stutters] organization that… recognizes these things.” Like she trips up but says the things she needs to do and what some members of the audience might need to hear.

[Courtney] But it feels good.

Because with Florence, not only did it feel like it was a PSA for the audience, but it was someone else telling the ace character, “This is who you are and what you are.” And some people do have that moment in real life, or they need to have that moment, or they need someone to tell them that what they’re experiencing or not experiencing is valid.

But I love that we are finally starting to get more examples of an adult asexual character who, even if the people around them are not comfortable with it, they are comfortable.

They know who they are.

They have had this conversation before.

And so the PSA obligatory Ace 101 isn’t being told to that character or just to the audience.

It is a really well-meaning friend who maybe not perfectly is trying to help him out when his family is coming in on him.

And so I think it fits really, really well.

[Courtney] I think that is something that’s often glossed over in sexuality education media in general, is how can we effectively teach the audience what we want to teach them without feeling like we’re just giving them a PSA?

How do you actually put this information in a context that makes a good story and makes sense for the characters and doesn’t feel like an after-school special?

And after this fumbling through trying to explain asexuality to his father, all hell really breaks loose when he once again outright asks, “What were you two doing in Niagara Falls?” And she answers, honestly.

She outright says, “He’s helping me have a baby.” And oh, I wish you all could see the facial expressions and the body postures of all of the actors in moments like these when, you know, bombshell drops.

But she also, during this conversation, says like, “I don’t even date men.

Like, this is just a sperm donor situation.

I myself am a queer woman.” And pretty much everyone except the father has a, “Oh, you shouldn’t have said that,” kind of expression when she does.

[Courtney] But there is a point when Junior’s wife, Morgan, before all this comes out – where she is queer and the sperm donor situation – she’s also kind of buying into the ‘they’re probably a couple’.

And she straight up is like, “Oh, Aziza, huh?

Beware.” She– she basically says, “Girl, run.” But when she actually chimes in and gets involved in this group spat that is continuing to escalate around the table, she accuses the parents of not caring about her at all, not giving a damn about her.

And the mother has made many snide comments about her up until this point, including but not limited to the fact that she didn’t bring the kids with them so they didn’t get to see their grandkids.

So obviously any grandmother would be very upset about that.

But she does seem to specifically detest her son’s wife.

And so she says, “None of you care about me.

You were all coddling my husband before he went to prison, and now here I am sitting here in the same position, I’m about to go into prison, and somehow I’m the bad guy.

And none of you care about me.” And then she really just lets it all out.

You can tell this has been pent up in her for a long time.

[Courtney] She’s like, “You all sit here and pretend to be this picture perfect family.

Meanwhile, you managed to raise a whole entire felon.” And then she points to Naz and is like, “And this one is about 20 years too late for the obvious autism diagnosis that you wouldn’t let him get.” And then she points at Solomon Sr.

and is like, “And he has about 50 illegitimate children.” And holy shit, she tears into each and every single one of those family members one at a time.

Things get louder, more tense.

Caludine, the matriarch of this family, outright slaps her by the end of this.

And so they are screaming at each other.

And she leaves to go back up to her room.

And then Nez just looks at the audience and was like, “So that was dinner.” And that is the end of Act 1, thereabout.

And I will say, when she said about 20 years too late for the obvious autism diagnosis, I was like, “Yep, I already saw it.” I absolutely already saw it.

I’m sure that in the same way until asexuality was stated outright, I’m sure the ace themes went over a lot of people’s heads, I’m sure the autistic characteristics also went over some people’s heads.

But like both of them from, like, the opening scene or two, I was like, “I understand so much about this character.” [Royce] Which– Did you go into this knowing that the lead was ace?

[Courtney] So here’s the interesting thing about that, and I’m glad you asked because this is also gonna be a mini rant.

I went to purchase a ticket for this show before I had any inclination that there was an ace character in it at all.

I did not know because at that time nobody had said anything about it.

I had not seen it written, I had not heard anyone talk about it.

It was very much a situation of trying to get a last-minute ticket to a show on– This wasn’t even a New York trip.

This was, “I am going to be in New York for a few hours, and I think I can catch a show if I play my cards right.” Deciding to buy this ticket.

I actually did not get to go, unfortunately.

I would have, but there was a huge, huge mix up that was not my fault with my hotel accommodations on that night.

So I had to, like, scramble to figure something else out and ended up missing the show when I intended to go fully.

And at that time, all I knew of the show, pre-Tony Awards, was: it is a family drama about a prominent African-American family with heavy ties to the Civil Rights movement.

That was about all I knew about this show up at that point.

[Courtney] I was disappointed I didn’t get to go to a show that night, because I’d prefer to go to a show than just argue with hotel people and go to bed.

But I wasn’t, like, feeling like I knew enough about the show to be really, like, missing out on it.

But after I, you know, did my business elsewhere, finally got back home, it was about two weeks later where a friend of mine just sent an off-handed social media comment of someone who is ace, who themselves went to Purpose, did not know there was an ace character in it, and the post was just like: “Wow, I went to Purpose tonight and started crying because I had no idea that there was an asexual character in it.

This means so much to me.” And then I was like, are you kidding me?

Are you kidding me?!

I was this close to sitting down at a Broadway show completely blind, not knowing there was an ace character, and about to have an ace character thrown in my face.

What amazing moment that might have been.

[Courtney] So then I did know there was an ace character.

So then, of course, I tried looking and watching more for it.

I tried seeing if more people would put out reviews.

I tried seeing if more people within the Ace Community had seen it and were actually talking more about it.

And I saw precious little about it.

And still to this day, like right now, when I search for Purpose Broadway reviews.

I pulled up the first six, and these are all, like, New York Times… They are Variety, Vulture, pretty prominent sites reviewing the show.

Of the first six that come up when I search, only one of them mentions the word asexual.

Only one.

And this is the context.

This is New York Times.

There have been a few New York Times articles in general that we have critiqued over the years.

But in this New York Times article entitled ‘Purpose Review: Dinner with the Black Political Elite,’ introduces Naz as someone that Claudine calls her weird son, and then goes on to say: “Naz may be autistic, and he says he’s asexual.” [Courtney] Before I finish that quote, let’s substitute any other sexuality for that and see if that still sounds okay to say: he may be autistic and he says he’s bisexual.

He says he’s gay.

Why did you phrase it that way?

That sounds like you, the reviewer, don’t believe it.

Or that there’s plausible deniability that he may be this thing.

That is such a weird thing to say in a show that is this explicit about this character’s asexuality.

Because it comes back around in another very big way at the end of Act 2.

But it concludes: “Naz may be autistic and he says he’s asexual.

Both of those identities the family vigorously denies, and his arrival for the homecoming with his live-wire friend Aziza does not make either trait seem more credible.” That is the only review out of six that I found that even mentions asexuality.

And that is the one mention of it right there.

[Royce] Kind of seems to me like they were trying to write from the perspective of the family but didn’t do a good enough job wording it as such.

[Courtney] No… [Royce] Because that is part of the conflict that happens at the house.

[Courtney] But it is so weird to me.

Because some of these other articles, like, they talk about other important different themes of the show.

And even if they’re avoiding spoilers, which I know they are in a lot of these cases, like they talk about the– Well, one of these at least talks about the parallel to Jesse Jackson.

One of them– Like they all talk about, oh, the, the Black Elite, the Black Excellence, the– the family with strong ties to Civil Rights movement.

Some of them talk about Aziza being a queer woman and they mention the fact that she’s trying to have a baby with Nez.

And like, they’ll say all of these things, but just don’t mention that the lead of this show is very importantly asexual.

It’s not just an aside and it’s not the story of the show.

The story is this one night that went wrong, these family dynamics, this one dinner that’s very indicative and revealing of these family dynamics.

But Naz’s asexuality and neurodivergence is a very important part of his contentions with this family.

[Courtney] And I’m just so sick of the fact– Because I talked about this with Selah and the Spades also, although I personally have some conflicting feelings about how I see that as asexual representation.

I’m even more mad about the fact that, like, the only times reviewers talk about Selah being asexual, they use the, “Oh, why would you want to cry in a bathroom?” line.

That’s the only line any reviewer ever talks about, and that’s not the only thing she says.

That’s not the only– It’s like, they miss every ounce of substance that is there when it pertains to asexuality.

Whether it’s explicitly stated in purpose like this, or if it is more subtle in something like Selah and the Spades.

I just want reviewers of media to see and acknowledge when asexuality is very important.

And they don’t seem to do that very often.

[Courtney] But yeah, then seeing, oh, the show I almost went to not even knowing there was an ace character– Now– After that point was when that one review that mentions asexual once came out.

So after that point, one review kind of mentions that, I saw the one social media post mentioning that.

It took some time before I saw anyone else in the Ace Community really start to talk about this.

But first the Tony Awards happened and it won the Tony for best play.

And so of course we had to make this happen.

Of course.

Had to actually see it and review for myself.

[Royce] So picking back up after intermission, after dinner, with Act 2?

[Courtney] Act two!

Act two brings us a little more chaos, but not with every single person around the table at once.

We get a lot of one-on-one conversations between different characters.

Including Naz talking to Junior, where he is just lamenting about the future of his life and his family and how he’s worried that his wife is gonna leave him, how he’s worried– He even mentions at one point that she’s seemingly hoarding pills as if she’s going to do something with them.

And at times it’s like, oh, is she trying to harm herself?

Is she trying to poison someone else?

What is this all about?

But Junior cannot really communicate effectively and very often makes every situation about himself.

There’s also a mention that during his conviction he was diagnosed.

Was it bipolar, they said?

[Royce] I think so, yeah.

[Courtney] And there’s a lot of other implication about that where now that he has this diagnosis he’s like, “I’m sick.” He’s like, “It’s not my fault, I’m just sick.” And his father, especially, among other family members, doesn’t really buy it.

They’re like, “That’s not a thing, you are not sick.” In monologues, there are conversations about like, “Oh, he may have totally tanked his chances at pivoting and coming back to politics, because, you know, people will go through great lengths to distance themselves from crazy.” I do like the interpersonal family dynamics around the ableism of neurodivergence around this son’s bipolar diagnosis.

[Royce] Yeah, a part of this whole evening, just feeling very realistic, particularly being in the home of a conservative-leaning family, at least conservative in some aspects– [Courtney] In some ways.

[Royce] –is that it feels very real and is also, like, byproduct of that.

[Courtney] Everyone sucks?

[Royce] Yeah, I was trying to figure out how to phrase, like, incorrect.

Or like they’re using the antiquated terminology that probably everyone listening is well versed in at this point in time.

[Courtney] Yeah, it is a situation where by the end of this play, every single character has their faults.

Every single character is wrong at some point.

Every single character is awful at some point.

Every single character said something that is cruel.

Some more so than others, some more often than others.

But all of these characters, at certain times, most of them at least, have been wronged in one way or another and have their own internal issues, whether it’s a mental health struggle or external issues, if it’s a relationship problem.

So we have many flawed but sympathetic characters, which is always like the secret sauce in a family drama, I think.

But the main conversations that happen in the latter part of this play, Naz and Junior talk to each other.

[Courtney] Junior gets drunk and terrible and even starts talking about, “Oh, what if she is trying to overdose on these pills?

What if we just let her…?

What if we just let her?” Which sounds awful and is awful, but his justification for it that he articulates is like, “I could work with that.

I could still make sense if she died.

Because if she died, I could still be her husband.

I would just be her husband in mourning.

I could still be father to my kids, but I would be father of kids who lost their mother.

It makes sense.

I can work with it.” You sort of see the surface level king of the pivot that was put on him chip away a little bit.

And you see this pivot is very much driven by, like, labeling himself and packaging himself in a way that he can make sense of.

And you really start to understand the title of Purpose in the latter half because you start to sort of see every character’s relationship with their own purpose or what they think their purpose is or what they’re trying to make their purpose out to be.

[Courtney] And Solomon Jr.

also– While getting chastised by his dad earlier, his dad basically said, “I regret giving you my name.” Like, stop being this way.

Stop creating this nonsense.

Stop putting my name on this.

And so he was like, “Who am I if I’m not Solomon Jr.

Jasper?” Like, who am I without a name?

Who am I now that I, you know, don’t have the job I used to?

I went to prison, I lost a lot of contacts I used to have.

And a lot of his purpose, what he was trying to make his purpose, really just came down to protecting his father’s name and his family’s name.

Because we learn in these conversations that, yes, there have been multiple claims of Solomon Sr.

having illegitimate children.

Multiple people have come forward about this, claiming that he is their father.

And Junior says like, “Yeah, I made those all go away.

I– when I was in office, I could just make a call and we could make those claims go away.

But I don’t have this power anymore.

People aren’t picking up their phone anymore since I went to prison and I got this diagnosis.

I don’t have these contacts.

So a new one has come forth and I can’t make her go away.” [Courtney] And so he was like, “What– what can I do?

I can’t protect my father from this.” And he said, “Even this book of letters, I was trying to protect him because Morgan wants me to sell a book pitching a tell-all about our family.

She thinks this could bring us a lot of money.

This could help get us out of this situation I put us in with this campaign fraud.” Which– Morgan also, she very clearly has been wronged here, because she also says like, “You all know that I didn’t do anything wrong.

You all know the only thing I did was sign my name on a piece of paper that your financial advisors told me to.” And so, like, awful stuff.

Clearly she’s trying to take care of her family in some way, but she’s pressuring him to write a tell-all book exposing how their family is not perfect.

All these other things that the family’s trying to keep secret and out of the public eye.

And he was like, “I couldn’t do that to our parents.

I couldn’t do that to our family.

So I thought about this book of letters instead, because this is a happy story.

This is a way we can spin it in a good positive way, and I can try to sell this as a book instead.” [Courtney] So his king of the pivoting, we now see is not just his own self-preservation, but everything is kinda just to protect his family’s name.

Or to try to live up to his family’s name.

And he’s clearly done a lot of very horrible things in that name, so he’s not off the hook, but we start to see those nuances.

So he’s sort of unraveling because he feels purposeless.

Morgan has a conversation with Nazareth saying, “You know, once I’m out of prison, I want to file for divorce.

But your mother made me sign an airtight prenup, and you know how much your mother has, like, used her law degree to make a lot of people sign a lot of things.” And she’s like, “Meanwhile, she made me sign the paper that got me convicted in this.

And now I’ve been disbarred.” And she starts talking about how she did not come from money.

She came from a poor family.

Her mother cleaned houses growing up.

She cleaned houses with her mother.

[Courtney] And she outright says, like, “When I saw Aziza and the way she responded to your dad, I saw myself in her, because I remember feeling those same feelings when I first, you know, came to your home and met your father.

But now I know the truth about all of you.

And now I also feel like Junior never really loved me as a person.

He loved me as a story.

He loved me as coming from a working class family and then getting my law degree.

And as a politician, that was really just serving his own purpose was to have a wife to talk about how real I am.” And so she’s clearly very hurt.

She’s trying to convince Nazareth to help testify on her behalf to try to not get screwed over in any sort of divorce because of this prenup that she was forced to sign.

Which of course Nazareth is like, “I can’t do that.” So even though it’s a less active effort ongoing as Junior’s, Nazareth is also himself trying to protect the family while keeping more of a distance than his brother has been, historically.

[Courtney] And even though Morgan is very sympathetic because she’s been screwed over time and time again by this family, she herself is also quite manipulative.

Because when Nazareth is– Like, he’s more worried about her life right now than her own husband.

So he’s, like, worried when she goes to the room on her own, he feels like he needs to talk to her or say something, and so he’s checking in on her instead of her own husband.

And he brings up the pills and is like, “Oh, he told me about the pills, what’s going on with those?” And she’s like, “I’ve lived with your brother for a long time.

You think I don’t know how to get in his head?” Like, “I have been putting these pills in places specifically for him to find it, ’cause I was waiting for him to say something about it.

Why didn’t he say something?

Why didn’t he come to me?

It’s because he doesn’t care about me.” And this, you know, further proves it.

Mom and Dad, however, now that it’s a new day and Aziza is trying to get the hell out of dodge– [Courtney] She’s actually trying to leave with Morgan.

Like, she’s going to drive Morgan to the airport.

Like, the two of them are trying to escape this house together the next morning.

But no, mother and father are like, “We are not letting her leave this house without signing something, because we have to protect the family.” So at first, Naz is really against this.

At first he’s like, “No, don’t make Aziza sign anything.

She wasn’t even supposed to know who you all are.

She wasn’t even supposed to know who my family is.

The child wasn’t meant to be my son or your grandchild.” Like, this child is supposed to just be Aziza’s kid.

I’m just the anonymous sperm donor.

And he at first was trying to protect her, saying, “No, please don’t make her sign something.” [Courtney] However, his tone kind of shifts the next day after she had that conversation and told her parents what was actually going on.

Because he didn’t want them to know any of this, and he gets really, really livid, and he gets very angry and very aggressive with her.

He actually shouts at Aziza, he slams a table, he gets very up in her face, she gets very scared.

And this is like, yes, it was also wrong of her to tell his parents something he explicitly told her not to say.

It is also wrong of him to get as aggressive as he did.

But she saw that aggression, and she took in that whole family dinner and all of the context around it.

And so by the next day, when they’re asking her to sign something, not only is Morgan saying, like, “Don’t sign anything.

Do not sign anything these people put in front of you.” She’s kind of saying like, “That’s okay, I really don’t need to because I’ve actually changed my mind.” At which point now all of a sudden everyone’s unhappy.

Naz is unhappy because he’s like, “Wait, what?

What do you mean you changed your mind?” [Courtney] But now the parents who weren’t even very happy with this arrangement anyway because it’s not traditional, it’s not conventional, they’re worried about how they could get in trouble if any of this gets out.

Or I don’t know, she could try to come back to them for money or something, whatever things they’re concerned about.

Or even just general scandal because of all the, you know, children of Solomon Sr.

that have come out.

Or the convictions that they’re getting imprisoned for.

Now all of a sudden they’re like, “What do you mean?

What’s wrong with our family?

You don’t want my son’s genetic material now?

Why?

What’s wrong with it?” Which is a very interesting defensiveness.

Because I’m sure before she said that they would have said like, “Yeah, we prefer this didn’t happen at all.” [Royce] Yeah, and the scene that follows is prolonged where she tries to gracefully dodge the question for a while until they sort of force an answer out of her.

[Courtney] Yeah, yeah.

And when they do force an answer out of her, it’s also not a good one.

And like coming from a social worker, some of the things are very disappointing to hear.

And this is Aziza’s moment of, like, you also very much have some of your own flaws and hangups here.

Because she’s like, “Well, about that thing that Morgan said about the autism diagnosis…” Which Nazareth in– in a monologue sort of says, like, yeah, after one of the kids got diagnosed, then Morgan was trying to figure out more and, like, learn more about this diagnosis.

And then at that point, apparently some stories came out about how, “Oh yeah, you know, when Naz was in school, one of these schools wanted to put him in a special program.

So we took him out of that school and put him in a different one.

And then when that school wanted to have him for testing, we took him out of that school and put him in a different one.” [Courtney] So there was a very clear, like, active avoidance of any kind of diagnosis and an adamant refusal that there could be, you know - quote - ‘anything wrong’ with their son was– was the defensive kind of vibe that the parents clearly had there.

And so Naz is like, yeah, so naturally when Morgan was trying to, you know, learn more and pry into this, some of these stories started coming up, and apparently all these things did happen.

So, seems like Morgan as a mom really started to understand neurodivergence better and probably at that point also started, like, maybe just observing Nazareth a little more and being like, “Oh, yeah, uh-huh I– I see it now.

Now that I’m learning about more things, perhaps there is a genetic component to this.” So Aziza says, like, “Well, about that diagnosis.” And she’s like, and like, “Let’s be real, there are mental health problems in this family, right?” To which case they all reject that.

Especially, especially the father.

[Courtney] He’s like, “No, are you talking about Junior?

No, that bipolar thing, that’s not real.” And she’s like, “But the, you know, the neurodivergent autism thing…” Solomon Sr.

at one point is even like, “Okay, so which one of us made you sick?

Which one of us did this to you, huh?

It’s not me.

Are you saying it’s your mother?

Like, which one of us did you get this from?” Like, daring them to say, yeah, we probably got it from you, Dad.

Or we got it from both of you.

It’s sort of that very defensive, like, I refuse to admit that my child could be neurodivergent because that might mean confronting the fact that I might be too.

But Aziza starts doing her stammering thing where she says maybe a little too much and not very gracefully when she’s in these high anxiety situations, where she even says, “Yeah, there’s even, you know, some research out there that maybe his neurotype is linked to the type of sexuality that he has.” And then she’s like, “But I, I, I don’t mean to mean that that’s a symptom?

Or like, I’m not a doctor.” [Courtney] So she says some bad things, tries to backpedal almost as if she hears herself and is like, “That’s not the thing I should be saying, but I am thinking it in my heart of hearts.

The asexuality was not an issue for me at first, but now that I’m putting more pieces together...” Now that there are more intersectional identities to consider, now it seems to have become less palatable to her.

The asexuality, fine.

And clearly she was looking for a Black sperm donor, that was something she mentioned was very important to her.

Now that she’s like, “Oh, I do see it.” She even starts saying like, “Well, he is an awkward communicator.

And he does like to be alone a lot, and he does have some special interests.

I have seen him hyper fixate on things.

And he’s asexual.” Now all of a sudden, not only is autism unacceptable for her to potentially risk having an autistic child in this moment, but she does throw out asexuality as like, that is probably indicative of that.

And– [Royce] She does also call out the outburst that he had as a side of him that she hadn’t seen before.

[Courtney] Yes, she does mention that as well.

She’s like, “I thought he was very laid back and chill, but that conversation we just had scared me.” And that is, you know, all in the context of, like, “Yeah, I do actually think he’s autistic, and maybe I don’t want to deal with that.” So that is also upsetting.

And I am not mad about it.

Because while I think in this conversation Aziza is wrong to say these things and to feel these things to some extent, it’s not really supposed to be seen as a good, positive, correct, accurate thing, I don’t think.

Because Nazareth is still our main character.

He’s our lead, he’s our point of view.

He’s, in his monologues, very funny, very charming, very likable.

He does have his flawed moment like every single other member of this cast does, but I don’t think that anyone – save for someone who is already so profoundly ableist and anti-autistic that they’re always going to see the worst possible light when something like this comes up – I don’t think the average person coming out of this show is going to be like, “Yes, autism and asexuality are related and that is a bad thing.” [Courtney] And in a way, it’s kind of intriguing to see a piece of media acknowledge that there may be some overlap.

Some intersectional space where autism and asexuality can be linked, at least for some people.

We have talked about this in the past when talking about autistic ace representation, how there’s this big fear within the community of allowing the two to exist too closely alongside one another.

Because a lot of people see, “Oh, asexual bad, autistic also bad.

One must be a symptom of the other if they both exist in the same person.” Which is just absolutely not the case.

But we do also have studies about autism and queerness, more general queerness than just asexuality often, that does say that autistic people are queer in higher rates than the allosexual population tends to be.

So I think that does naturally follow that asexuality could also be included in that, and that doesn’t have to be a bad thing for us to acknowledge it.

[Courtney] In a real life scenario, the way Aziza brings that up and justifies it is not a good way to do it.

If they just left it there and didn’t bring up the asexuality again in a more positive light, I would likely be upset about it, but I’m not because the asexuality ends up becoming a very important component of Naz’s conversation, getting some amount of progress and understanding with his father later.

So that is ultimately the note that we leave on pertaining to Naz’s asexuality, and it’s really quite beautiful.

We do get, as well, before all this happens, just an explanation from Aziza about why she wants to have a child and why she decided to have a child even though she is not partnered.

And she said her decision was made during the pandemic and during the Black Lives Matter protests.

And she talks about what it was like for her to be on those streets, to be protesting and how it felt.

[Courtney] And as she’s explaining this to Claudine and Solomon, they start to get a bit of understanding from her.

They’re like, “Yeah, the things you’re talking about sounds like what we were feeling and what we were experiencing during the Civil Rights marches.” So they get some more understanding from her even after the tension of, “I’m using your son as a sperm donor and also I’m a queer woman.” And they start making some ties with her, but then she’s ready to go after all of this.

We had what I think is like the most chaotic use of Chekhov’s gun I’ve ever seen in my life on a stage.

And I still don’t know how I feel about it.

Cause I saw the first half of it coming, but they still pulled a twist on me.

Naz’s conversation with Morgan, where she was talking about like, “Oh, the pills were kind of just a test.

I was just trying to see if he’d do anything or if he’d notice.” But she was like, “If I wanted to hurt myself, there are easier ways to do it.” And she lists some off and then mentions, like, “Plus, I know where your daddy keeps his guns downstairs.” And I was like, oh, no, gun mentioned in a play.

[sighs] I was like, oh, no.

I– I knew something was gonna happen.

[Courtney] And then in all this chaos where Aziza and Morgan are trying so desperately to get out, and everyone’s really upset because this very upsetting conversation just happened, Junior runs in, in like full beekeeping gear, and he’s like, “Dad, I did it.

I get it.

I’m helping you with the bees now.

I couldn’t sleep last night, so I picked up your books about beekeeping, and so I wanted to help.

I read your books, and I went outside, and I saw that there’s still honey in the hive.

When you harvested the honey, you must have missed some.

So I helped you out, I figured it out, I brought all the honey in.” And it’s the dead of winter.

So he’s like, “Here, I got the rest of the honey for you.

Are you proud of me, dad?

Do you love me?

Can we be beekeepers together, dad?” Very sad.

Very, very sad.

And then this father who refuses to have anything remotely approaching intimacy with his son who so desperately wants it is just like, “What is wrong with you?

You just killed my bees.

My bees are gonna die because of you.

That was their food for the winter.

There aren’t flowers.

It’s snowing outside.

You just took all of their food from them.

You just killed my hives.” [Courtney] And he was like, “You never teach me anything.

I’m just trying to help.

I’m just trying to be a part of your life.” And so he starts running.

And he runs upstage and goes in the door that I know to be the basement from a previous scene, and I went, “Fuck… Oh no.” They mentioned a gun in a play, and he just ran downstairs in a fit of emotion.

And then, by the gasps in the audience, I had to have been one of very few people who knew where that was going, but a gunshot rang out.

That was maybe one of the loudest gasps I think I have ever heard in a theater before.

It really shook people.

And oh my god.

They had Naz run down, and like the mom is, like, crying and shouting.

And I’m like, “Oh no, he just died.

This is a tragedy.

Uh-oh.” They run back up and are like, “He missed!” And he’s still alive.

And he’s like, “I can’t do anything right.

There’s just a hole in the wall now.” And when this happened, the audience just cracked up laughing.

And I was like, I… Is this nervous laughter?

Does everyone actually think it’s funny that he missed?

It was a bit of emotional whiplash.

[Courtney] That’s the one moment of this play that I’ve been thinking back through over and over again, and I can’t decide how I feel about it.

It was chaotic.

But, yeah, so it kind of concludes, Morgan now coddling her husband who’s in a horrendous emotional state, and I guess doesn’t end up leaving in that moment with Aziza like she was planning to.

She stays to comfort him for a bit.

Claudine still wants Aziza to sign something.

And now at this point, Naz is resentful enough of everything Aziza had just said about the autism, the mental health, the fact that she doesn’t want to go through with this anymore.

He even said, like, “What do you mean?

We already did it.” And she’s like, “Pregnancy is never a guarantee.

We don’t even know if I got pregnant or not.” And he’s like, “But what if you did?” And she’s like, “Are you really asking me that question right now?

Do you really need to ask me this question right in front of your parents?

Do we need to have this conversation?” [Courtney] So the implication I think was pretty clear that her intention was to terminate the pregnancy if it did take.

But again, they just attempted the Williams Sonoma turkey baster, like, within the last day or two, so there’s no telling what the situation is here right now.

But Naz is like, “Well, if you don’t want to go through with it anyway, then what’s it to you if you sign the paper?” Like, “We’re done here.” And so she’s kind of also taken aback, like, “Wow, Naz, you really want me to go with your mother and sign this right now?

Okay, fine.” And she does.

She walks back to Claudine’s office and signs whatever she drafted up to have her sign.

[Courtney] There is a really beautiful, sort of final scene of dialogue that happens between Naz and his father, where his father approaches him once again and is like, “I’ve done some thinking.

I want all of us to be honest.

I want all of us to be in reality together.

And as the patriarch of this family, I’m gonna lead by example.

So I want you to know that, yes, there is a very credible person who has come forward claiming that I am her father, and even though your mother doesn’t want me to, I am planning on engaging with her.

Now your turn.

What truth do you wanna tell me?” And Nazareth is like, “I don’t have anything that I haven’t already told you.” And he’s like, “But I just don’t understand this asexuality.” And he got to talking about his bees, and he was like, “The bees have become my new purpose.

Honey is so amazing.

Honey never spoils, and bees just make it.

It is food.

It can nourish people.

And I can help the bees.” [Courtney] And he was like, “You know, now that I’m older and I’m not organizing these marches and I’m not on the front lines fighting for our rights, I felt like I didn’t have a purpose anymore, and now the bees have become that.” And they start to begin drawing a parallel between a person’s individual purpose and the concept of God.

Because as a reverend, he was saying, “I felt God.

I felt close to God when I had the purpose, when I was doing these marches.

And I’m just trying to feel that again.

I’m trying to feel close to God.

I’m trying to get this purpose.” And Nazareth went to Divinity School, dropped out because it did not feel right for him, but he is able to speak about spirituality in a way that is profound enough that his father’s like, “Why did you drop out of Divinity School, son?

Like, clearly you would have been very good at this.” [Courtney] I should mention his photographs also.

He said his photography wasn’t a career for him until Aziza saw his photos and encouraged him to pursue it.

And now he does have a career doing it.

He’s published in, like, nature magazines and things.

And this is what he does professionally.

His father doesn’t understand it.

His father thought it was silly.

His family had never seen his photographs before.

Partially Naz’s own choice, I suspect.

Because he kind of knew that his family wouldn’t really get it and just didn’t really want to go there.

But his father said some derogatory things about his photos early on.

And his father was shown in one of these earlier seems to be very single-minded about what he thinks is important.

Because he– Aziza was trying to say, like, “Oh, but, you know, your son’s actually really good at photography.

His work is wonderful.

He has this whole series of photos about, you know, cities that have been destroyed because of climate change, and now nature is taking over them again.” And etc, etc.

[Courtney] And he says, like, “Oh, climate change.” And she’s like, [whispering] “Do you– do you not think that’s a thing?” Uh-oh.

And he’s like, “I’m not saying it’s not a thing.

I’m just saying I can’t care about it.

Like there are more important things, like the treatment of, like, myself and my family and my people, and not the animals and nature.” But when he was talking about, like, the bees and how important the bees were and how important bees are to nature, then Aziza is like, “See, I mean that’s not too different from what Naz is doing.” Like he’s also getting close to nature and he’s also showing people how amazing nature is.

And he’s like, “Don’t compare what you’re doing to what I’m doing.

What I’m doing is actually important.

What I’m doing can actually feed people.

What you’re doing is not the same.” So he’s very single-minded about what he thinks is a worthwhile purpose.

[Courtney] And the unwritten subtext, I think, also extends to Claudine, the mother, where she cares very much about being the matriarch of this family and in fact, even stopped practicing law so that she could focus on being the mother of the family and keeping this family together.

So that puts things under a lot more pressure when you see her pressuring her son into getting a girlfriend and starting a family.

But in this conversation, it seems like Solomon not only starts to open up a little more to be receptive to Naz’s asexuality, but also his passions and his purpose.

Because he sits there and kind of says, like, “You know, it might not work out with Aziza, but I still kind of liked her.

She actually made me think, and a lot of people don’t do that anymore.

And I didn’t agree with everything she said, but I was kind of listening to her when she was saying sexuality is a spectrum.” And Naz is like, “Does that mean you actually believe me?” And he’s like, “I’m… open… to the concept of believing it.” [Courtney] Like, he’s not ready to say that he’s okay with it, but he’s like– it’s basically him saying, “I will try.

I will try.” And it’s not like he is a perfect overnight ally now, but he does start asking questions.

And he says, you know, “After Aziza was talking to me, I started thinking more about asexuality, and I started thinking about you in Divinity School, and I still don’t understand why you dropped out, but you’ve always had this very quiet, like, spiritual light about you inside that I’ve always seen,” which might also just be the neurodivergence and the way one might perceive some of those characteristics.

But he said, “I got to thinking there actually did used to be a time when, you know, celibacy was considered a divine calling for some people.” He said there are monks out there, there are nuns, there are people who have taken vows of celibacy, and I think a lot of them had the same sort of spiritual light I’ve seen from you.

And he’s like, “Maybe, maybe some of those people were like you.

Maybe they gave this up because it wasn’t that hard for them to do.” [Courtney] And I thought it was a very endearing way for someone to start to find their own way to accept asexuality and start to wrap their head around it.

It’s not perfect.

It’s not the end-all be-all of understanding.

But for any queer identity, when you have a parent who is not accepting of it, who is very conservative, they may not always come around, but those of us who do have parents that come around, it normally is very incremental.

And it kind of starts with one conversation of, “Okay, I will try.” And that is very much what this conversation is.

And we don’t get to see conversations like that pertaining specifically exclusively to asexuality very much.

We have some examples of, like, gay characters who have had conversations like this with their families, but I thought it was very well done for what it was.

But then!

He can’t help himself.

He’s like, “But!

But I do still have a question and I can’t get off of it.

So I have to ask, how did you provide that girl your genetic material?” [Courtney] He’s like, “Did you touch her?” And he’s like, “No!

I went into the bathroom.” And he’s like, “But what did you do?” And he’s like, “I used my imagination.” He’s like, “What did you imagine?” He’s like, “I do not understand how, even if you were just masturbating in the bathroom, I don’t understand.

If you are asexual, if you do not have any attraction to anybody, how–?

What did you think about?” And Nazareth says lakes.

And he goes on this beautiful tangent about how glorious lakes are in nature and the smell of the lake and the feel of the lake.

And when the sun hits the lake just right, it is expounding upon the very first monologue at the opening of the show and how much these places and nature mean to him and how obsessed he’s gotten with them.

And even though, like, it is silly, it is a joke, the audience laughed and they were meant to laugh when it’s like, “What do you think about when masturbating?” “Well, lakes.” Like that, that is a joke and it’s supposed to be, and I will allow it to be a joke.

[Courtney] Because then you get the punchline in, where everyone’s laughing, but then he goes on to just talk from the heart with the utmost passion about how much he loves nature and being in it and why he loves it.

And that is something that is missing so often from so many pieces of asexual media.

Because so often asexuality is either the PSA or the main personality.

This character is such a well-rounded, fully-fledged person.

We have him discussing his passions.

We have this aspect of undiagnosed neurodivergent in him that may explain some aspects of his character, but is not the only part of it.

We have his relationship dynamics with his best friend Aziza.

We have his relationship dynamics with his family.

We have his family trauma.

And we see his flaws.

But alongside his flaws, we see his beauty.

We see his charisma, his humor.

And we see his passions.

Like, he has everything I want from a well-rounded character of any identity.

[Courtney] And so after he just gushes about how wonderful the lakes are and his places in nature are, he says like, “Once I, you know, think about all of those things and just let go.” He’s like, it can happen.

He says some iteration of something that a lot of aces have said at one point or another.

Is like, “Oh, the machinery works.

I just don’t feel like I want to touch someone or be intimate with them or have a relationship with them.” And there’s certainly an argument to be made in the fact that he does drop the fact that he likes solitude, he likes being alone, he doesn’t necessarily want a relationship with someone.

Definitely an argument to be made that he may also be aromantic, but that is not a stated or prominent factor in this particular story.

Although explicitly aromantic or not, it is refreshing that we have a Black male ace character who is agreeing to be a sperm donor, and excited to be a sperm donor, whose main conflicts, conflicts– He has more than one conflict.

Who has more than one conflict and not a single one of those conflicts is how do I have a relationship as an asexual person?

[Courtney] Because that is like the main conflict for a lot of ace characters in media.

Unless even sometimes the aroace characters in media big conflict is just like: how do I be aroace and also have a happy life?

How do I exist this way when I don’t have many people to look up to and see examples of this?

Like, that’s another big conflict that we see all the time, is just how do I exist as this sexuality.

That was none of the conflicts this character had.

I think his conflicts are much more interesting personally.

And the fact that they were able to weave and integrate asexuality into the story in such an important way for the interpersonal relationships, for the plot, without making the asexuality the problem for the character – it was only a problem for his family – I thought that was great.

I think we need more examples of complex asexual characters with intersectional identities and rich dynamics with a variety of other characters.

[Courtney] I’ve even critiqued some ace characters as being like they’re so off to the side in this show that we don’t even know who their parents are, especially if they’re like a kid or a teenager.

It’s like all the other kids on this show, we know who their parents are, but we don’t even see the ace characters’ parents.

Like, who else does this ace person know?

So yeah, really good, really well done.

There is another comedic moment because, as he’s talking so passionately about these lakes and being like, “And that’s what I thought about and that’s how I provided my genetic material,” which I also think is an objectively great way to discuss being a sperm donor.

Just providing my genetic material.

His dad just sort of, like, chuckles and is like, “Wow, maybe I need to take another look at those photographs of yours.” Which is funny and is a joke, which the audience is meant to take that way, but it’s also a moment of connection and understanding.

Because humorous though it may be, it’s his dad for the first time kind of being like, “Okay, I see that this thing that I don’t understand is important to you, I’m gonna give it another go.” [Courtney] Basically, I will try.

Not only will I try to understand and accept your asexuality, but I will try to understand that you are your own person with your own passions and interests and career and hobbies that are not the same as mine.

And maybe I will try a little harder to not inherently view them as lesser.

It was beautifully done.

They share this moment.

The dad walks off.

It concludes with a final monologue by Nazareth alone on the stage, basically giving us the postscript for all the other characters, what happened after that night at dinner.

He basically says, that’s the last, if not the only, that’s like the only personal conversation I ever had with my father.

“We never chatted like that again.

My parents got older.

I never saw Aziza again.

Even that day after she signed whatever my mother had her sign, she snuck out the back and I did not see her again and she never reached out again.” Which hurts me so much.

[Courtney] Because he also– I don’t think I emphasized this enough, at the very opening of the show, talked about how important Aziza was to him and how she’s a wonderful friend, a wonderful person, how she’s just this incredible light in his life.

And I want more characters talking about how much their friends mean to them.

Because that kind of language is normally only reserved for romantic relationships or sometimes family members.

So he lost his nearest and dearest friend through all of this, never sees her again.

Devastating.

Made me sad.

I cried so much.

I cried so much in this show.

For many reasons, all the reasons.

And, you know, the parents get older, Morgan went to prison, didn’t serve her entire sentence, but a good percentage of it.

Did end up divorcing Solomon Jr.

after she got out.

She did end up getting custody of the kids.

[Courtney] And as for Aziza, he said, “I found out through her social media pages that she did have a son.” And he’s like, “I’m so happy for her.

I find myself looking at these pictures, and I look at his birthday, and I do the mental math,” and he says he was born 10 months after that night at dinner, which is like, “Probably means it’s not mine, but it’s close enough that I still wonder because how would she find another sperm donor that soon after.” And he’s like, “I look at these pictures of this kid, and I start to convince myself that maybe I see some resemblance.

And I start to get happy thinking that it might be mine, but I’ll never know.

And I want to know, but I don’t want to know.” And then he kind of says like, “Did I miss out on something by messing up that night at dinner so bad?” Like, “Would I have found God on this path if I had remained open to possibly–” you know.

[Courtney] Not even necessarily– He doesn’t talk as if he definitely wants to, like, be this kid’s father, but the agreement was always going to be like, oh, either this will be completely anonymous, or we’ll give, you know, the kid a choice at some point when he gets old enough if he wants to know where he comes from, that sort of a thing.

But he doesn’t use the word purpose for himself.

He says, “I wonder if I could have found God on this path.” But given the conversation that happened earlier with Solomon Jr., I think they start to blur the lines of God and purpose as concepts.

So that was very, very interesting.

And it’s very intriguing to have an ace sperm donor character who then is mostly doing it because they want to help their friend out, but then starts thinking like, “Is there more to this?

Do I want?” And there is a lot open to interpretation, because there is some that isn’t said.

[Courtney] He doesn’t say, “I want to be a father now.” He doesn’t say, “I want to meet this kid,” necessarily.

But there’s a lot of just not fully processed feelings about it where I think could be read by different viewers in a lot of different ways.

And in terms of ace rep, I’m– I would be happy with either.

Like, ambiguity like that, I think, works only if all answers could still be good and interesting and new.

Like, it’s not good if it’s ambiguous as to whether or not this character is asexual.

Like, it’s just not obvious enough.

Maybe some people will see it, but most people probably won’t.

That’s not a good way to do ambiguity.

But if you think about all the possibilities, we now have an ace character who doesn’t want partnership but does want to be a father, that’s interesting.

If we have an ace character who doesn’t want to be a father but does want to be a successful sperm donor, that’s interesting.

If we have a character who did sort of decide and start to regret that maybe he did actually want to be some form of co-parent to this child, with his gay best friend, that’s also interesting.

[Courtney] All of those are interesting ways to interpret that.

So, I have zero conflict with the fact that his actual desires, that haven’t been fulfilled, aren’t stated so explicitly in this final monologue, because all of them would be groundbreaking for ace representation.

This is a groundbreaking piece of media for ace representation as a Broadway play, Tony Award-winning for best play 2025, rich character.

Absolutely rich, well-developed character.

Black ace, probably aro, neurodivergent, sperm donor with just complicated feelings.

Who’s also a flawed character, maybe sometimes has some anger management tissues, normally just wants to keep to himself.

And loves lakes so much and is obsessed with capturing the perfect photo when the light hits the lake just right.

I love this character.

I love this show.

I love all of the characters, even some of the more upsetting ones, like Solomon Sr., even though he’s such a curmudgeon, he does start coming around, so we see a little bit of character growth in him.

[Courtney] And even his more upsetting views, like the fact that he’s saying, like, “Oh, we don’t have time or energy to care about climate change.” Like, I don’t agree with that.

I think we should all be caring about climate change.

But even his misguided, conservative leaning justifications for why he doesn’t care about issues like that are still articulated in a way that a lot of people in the audience are going to be like, “Oh, even if I don’t agree with you, I understand why you feel this way now.” So there’s just a lot of depth and nuance in every single one of these character dynamics.

And I will say there are a lot of, you know, sitcom-y elements of this, which makes a lot of sense.

It was directed by Phylicia Rashad, also known as Clair Huxtable from The Cosby Show.

So there are a lot of reasons why a lot of this reads as a sitcom.

But sitcoms, if it doesn’t get too after-school-special-ly, I think have a super power when it comes to promoting acceptance of underrepresented minority groups.

[Courtney] And one thing that I think this play does for ace characters, which I haven’t seen before for ace characters, but I have seen for gay characters, is I want to compare it to the episode of Golden Girls when Blanche’s brother comes out as gay.

Because I have seen so many people talk about how groundbreaking that episode was because, not only was it one of the earlier examples of having a character come out as gay, but in the same episode, they showed people the wrong way to respond to someone coming out as gay, and by the end of the episode they showed you a better way to do it.

And they did that with Blanche.

She served as both examples: the bad one and the not perfect but good one.

Because she also kind of starts before her brother outright comes out as gay to her, she’s making the little wink-wink, nudge-nudge comments.

She’s assuming he is heterosexual, that he’s popular with the ladies.

“Oh, he’s a Devereaux, of course he’s popular with the ladies.” [Courtney] So she’ll make those little comments that definitely hit differently once you know Clayton is gay and he has just been hearing his sister say these comments to him, probably since they were teenagers or young adults.

We finally see an example of an ace character getting those in Purpose.

She did not take it well when she found out that Clayton is gay.

She was very upset about it.

She rejected it.

She didn’t want to hear it, didn’t want to believe it.

That’s the bad example.

But by the end of the episode, they have a conversation, she comes to an understanding.

There’s an acknowledgement that she’s not there yet, but she’s going to try.

She’s also saying things that are maybe a bit misguided but are really endearing by nature of the fact that she’s trying.

Like they’re sitting in a bar having this final conversation and she’s just thinking, “Gay, gay, gay, gay.

This must be a gay bar.” So she like stands up and is like, “I want all of you men to know that I would be proud for you to date my brother.” [Courtney] And he’s like here hanging his head in his hands, like embarrassed, because this is not even the situation that’s going– But she’s being silly and ridiculous about it, but she’s trying.

This is her trying to extend an olive branch.

And so being an early example of, like, a gay coming out story on television like this, the sitcom superpower is that by proxy of Blanche Devereaux, it’s kind of teaching the audience like, don’t be Blanche the first time around.

That was bad.

The second time around, better.

But they also don’t make it a magical cure-all.

It’s not like she’s all of a sudden by the end of the episode perfect, gets everything, says everything perfectly, because that’s not realistic.

That’s not how people are.

Nobody should expect their initially unsupportive family member or other person in their life to just be perfect, flip on a switch, then they’re there.

This play feels like that for aces.

This feels like our first true example of getting that for our sexuality.

And as someone who adores Golden Girls – seen every episode a million and eight times – this is what I want for us.

[Courtney] And although I won’t have nearly as much to say about Maybe Happy Ending because it is not explicitly asexual and some people are gonna disagree with me out there, because they’re robots and that is inherently going to be divisive in the ace community, I’m claiming it: Best Musical and Best Play 2025 Tony Award winning Broadway shows, all asexual.

It’s the year of Ace Broadway, and you cannot tell me otherwise.

So sometime soon we’ll talk about Maybe Happy Ending.

It’ll be a much shorter episode than this.

But if any of you very, very soon or down the line when we start seeing it – hopefully, fingers crossed – in regional theaters being produced in other places, if you can see this show, do.

One of the best examples of ace representation I think I have seen to date, and probably just on its own one of the best plays I have ever seen.

Cannot recommend it enough.

[Courtney] Yeah, that’s all I got.

So we are going to go ahead and wrap this up.

I don’t know how long I’ve been talking, but I’m sure it’s been a while.

So, as always, we are going to leave you off with today’s featured MarketplACE vendor: Missy Peña Art.

Where you can find anime art and D&D merch, all with a classy, dark, and humorously clever vibe.

Prints, zines, pins, and more.

Missy Peña is a queer woman-owned shop and works with White Squirrel to fulfill orders, which is also queer and woman-owned.

We love to see it.

There are so many great things in this shop.

I’ve actually purchased several of them, if not for myself, for gifts for other people, because some of these are just so perfect for very specific interests.

There are, like, prayer candles with a D20 on it that says High Roller; pouches that say Adventure Gear for your dice, pens, pencils.

And some of these art prints are just so, so good.

Some of them are parodies of well-known pieces of art, like Starry Night with a Pokemon on it.

Some are pop art style.

Some are more darker and Gothic.

[Courtney] I actually, as someone who really loved Black Butler way back in the day, there is a parody of the famous painting The Swing which has Ciel dressed in drag in the big poofy pink ball gown when they dressed him up as a girl with Sebastian the Butler like pushing the swing.

And it’s all done in the style of the famous Swing painting.

It was so good.

It’s so good.

And if you’re someone who wears pins, there are some pins.

There are also a couple of zines, lots of stuff.

Definitely check it out.

As always, the links are going to be in the description box on YouTube and in the show notes on our website.

But that is all we have for today.

So as always, thank you all so much for being here and indulging one of my special interests, which is theater.

[chuckles] And we will talk to you all next time.